Peter collier



(No Model.)

' P. COLLIER. EXTRAGTINGJUIOES FROM BAGASSE, PLANTS, 8w.

I wwmwwy 'ntor solvent.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

PETER 0OLLIER,OF \VASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

EXTRACTING JUJCES FROM BAGASSE, PLANTS, 840.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Lette'rs Patent No. 251,701, dated January 3, 1852.

Application filed October 14, 1880. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, PETER (JoLLIEn, of Washington city, inthe District of Columbia, have invented a certain new and useful improvement in a process and means for extractingjuices from cane, beet, sorghum, and cornstalk bag'asse, and other plants and vegetables; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, which will enable others skilled in the art to which it pertains to make and use the same, reference being bad to the accompanying drawing, and to the letters of reference marked thereon, forming a part of this specification.

My invention is designed .to produce a leaching apparatus for extracting the juices from bagasse and similar material, of the cheapest, simplest, and most efficient character, so cheap and simple that it can be built on any plantation with the materials already at hand and by unskilled labor, and as efficient as the most costly and complicated devices heretofore used for the same purpose.

My leach is so arranged as, first, to permit the leaching process, the addition of unleached material, and the removal of leached material to be carried on at the same time without the one interrupting or interfering with the other; and, second, so arranged that the solvent will act on the bagasse in the inverse order of the time it has been subjected to the leaching process; and, third, so arranged that all the bagasse will be acted on equally by the solvent.

The object of the invention is to extract from bagasse the largest amount of juice practicablewith the smallest practicable amount of The largest amount of bagasse that can be saturated with any given portion of any known solvent will not liberate and take up in solution sufficient sucrose to pay for the expense of evaporating the solvent; but the same portion of the solvent, after hax'ing saturated one portion of bagasse, can be madeto saturate another portion, and the process can be continued until the solvent used will become about as rich in sucrose as thejuice that was abstracted by the mill.

My apparatus is shown in the drawing. It consists of a stiff frame-work, A, built to form a series of platforms or steps ditfering'a few inches in height. Upon these steps are placed tanks, which for chea-pness and convenience may be ordinary barrels. Suitable tubing connects the bottom of each barrel or tank with the top of the next one below.

The frame-work,with its steps, may be built in a straight line, or may be semicircular around a central derrick, which is more convenient, and the greater'the number of steps the longer the'apparatus may be worked without shifting. A railroad-track may surround the platform for convenience in moving the tanks. There should be as great a number of steps as the size of the tanks and the central derrick will permit, and the tanks,when the leach isfirst started, should be arranged on the topmost steps.

The tanks are filled with bagasse and the solvent is admitted into the upper tank. Havin g reached the bottom of this tank, additional solventis added, causing the first to flow over through the pipe a into the second tank, and the process is continued till the first portion of the solvent shall have passed through and out of the last tank in the series. Then a tank filled with fresh material is added at the lower end of the series and the tank at the other end is removed and emptied, and thus the process is continued until the lowest step of the platform shall have been occupied, when the tanks must be removed in their order to the highest steps and the process continued.

In the drawing the platform A is shown as extending through but half a circle. It may be made to extend through the entire circle or through many circles, one above the other, like a circular flight of stairs. A car-track is shown, by the use of whichthe tanks can be brought from the mill filled to any point of the, circle, to be raised by the derrick to their respective places on the platform A.

I am aware that the simple-process of leaching by percolation and diffusion herein described is not new and I am also aware that tanks have been heretofore arranged in series or steps; but

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. A leach consisting of a series of movable tanks connected bysuitable tubing arranged on a series of fixed steps greater in number than the tanks, thereby permitting the addi- 3. In aleaching apparatus, the combination tion of tanks filled with fresh material at the of the above-described series of tanks and to bottom of the series and the removal of the steps and a central derrick for moving said spent tanks at the top, substantially as detanks.

5 scribed. PETER COLLIER.

2. In aleaehing apparatus, the combination I \Vitnesses:

of two or more movable tanks with three or I CHARLES M. SMITH, more fixed steps, substantially as described. 0. D. BARRETT. 

